Pick A Side!

The scene is familiar…a school playground, a group of children…pick a side.  “If you want to be my friend, then you can’t be friends with her! Pick a side!”  Even as we grow older, we pretend that such childish prejudices don’t exist.  And yet when we look around the lunch room and beside the coffee machine, those cliques are just as present today.  Do we mean to break off into these groups and form our little alliances?  Do we consciously make decisions to pull a select few of us away from the others, or is it a subconscious attraction to others that we perceive as like us?

I think what is more important is the motive of the separation.  Are we pulling away to ostracize others or are we drawing a line in the sand and setting a boundary?  Joshua said “Choose you this day who you will serve.”  At some point in our lives, we need to choose a side.  Is it going to be a side of pride and having our own way, or is going to be God’s side?  Will we be like Joshua 3:5 and sanctify ourselves, or separate ourselves for a special holy purpose, so that the Lord can do wonders among us?  No one trusts a person who sits on the fence, indecisive or playing both sides.  Neither does God. 

Like the children of Israel, we have not passed this way before.  I am crossing that line and standing with Joshua.  As for me, I will serve the Lord.  How about you?  Pick a side!
~D

Walking Blindly

I have found that I have a tendancy to stop at the end of a story.  I usually don't read the Postlogue.  In the case of the Easter story, that would be the Road to Emmaus.  I find it interesting that the most detailed account is in the book of Luke.  My reasoning is this, Luke was not a disciple.  He was not even there during the resurrection.  Luke however, was a doctor, which made him intelligent, logical, and well educated.  Probably much more so than the fishermen apostles, NOT that I am saying that you have to be a genius to serve God.  But Luke was hired to research the life of Jesus to prove authenticity.  How did he come by his information?  Eyewitness accounts and interviews.  That is why it interests me that his account is the most detailed.  Did he speak to the actual men that encountered Him on the road?  Maybe.

In this account, Jesus spent hours with these mournful men walking back home after the crucifixion.  He walked with them talking about what had just happened in Jerusalem and sharing the Old Testament prophets and what was foretold of the Christ.  And in all that time, they didn't recognize Him.  They didn't see Him because all they could see was their sorrow.

How many times do I find myself in that same place.  Full of sorrow, full of self-pity, and full of myself.  But you know what?  He is there with me too.  But I don't see Him.  I can be just as blind as those men on the road to Emmaus, walking with the Christ and too caught up my problems to see Him there with me, every step of the long journey.  Until He reveals himself and I am left to reflect on the abundant grace that has carried me through.

Open my eyes Lord, so that I may behold your presence and see your glory!
~D

An Open Door

As always, I am a day late and a dollar short...or in this case, 4 days late.  On Easter Sunday, I was complelled to look at each account of Christ's resurrection and compare them.  Something occurred to me, sitting there in the quiet of the morning with my Bible in one hand and my coffee in the other...the stone was rolled away.  Now, I know what you're thinking, that is the basic principle of the story right?!  And yes it is.  But WHY?  That is what I never thought about before.  You see, pictures all depict Jesus walking out of the tomb with this huge stone on the side.  The stone was moved so that Jesus could get out, right?  WRONG! 

The stone was moved so that others could go in!  What was I thinking that this Jesus of whom I speak would need an angel to unseal him from the grave.  This same Jesus who can walk on the water, talk to the waves, and enter through locked doors would not need anything moved out of His way.  But, if the stone were not moved, no one else could see that it was empty inside.  And that is just what happened.  When Peter and John and the women looked inside, they saw only an angel, and the grave clothes folded neatly where the body had been. (now, I have to be honest, the mom in me REALLY wants to use that as excuse for my own sons. "See Jesus made his bed when he got up!" It would not be the first time I have pulled the Jesus card... "I bet Jesus didn't fight with his brother" "I bet Jesus didn't give his mother a hard time about getting a bath"  Sad I know, but true.)

Will you go in?  Will you enter the doorway that He left open for you?  The tomb is still empty, and He is still ALIVE!
~D